Desperate car jacking takes baby from mother

A desperate mother and her 16-month-old baby became the unwitting victims of a frightening carjacking that saw the thief drove off with the baby strapped still in the vehicle.

CCTV footage from December shows the mother, who had just loaded her baby into the car, was preparing to leave the Parquesur shopping mall, south of Madrid, when a man jumped into the passenger side and demanded she handover the car.

Police said the man, identified only as JAL, held a knife while he wrangled the mother from her car.

The woman remained calm and tried to persuade the man to let her take her child from the back seat but the 34-year-old criminal did not listen.

At that point the mother began screaming for help, alerting nearby shoppers who rushed to her aide while the thief forced her from the car and reversed out of the parking spot.

With frantic strength the mother held onto the door of her moving car as other shoppers rushed in to help, kicking at the car and trying to get at the man through the window as he drove away with the baby strapped in the back seat.

The crook then picked up his 29-year-old girlfriend outside the car park before the pair abandoned the vehicle less than 2km away.